


Braw and Pastoral

by kashinoha



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Allergies, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gift Fic, Idiots in Love, Jon being an awkward mess, Martin being an actual mess, Massage, Sneezing, They Make It Work, so fucking self-indulgent because gotta cope with covid somehow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:15:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24190438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kashinoha/pseuds/kashinoha
Summary: Daisy's cabin doesn't have everything Martin needs, but that's okay because whatJonneeds right now is him being as human as possible.Get-well/gift fic for the lovely @airborneglitter, who wanted some allergic!Martin. Takes place right before episode 160. Enjoy!
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Braw and Pastoral

All characters © Rusty Quill

Jon never thought he’d use the word _arthritic_ to describe a bunch of throw pillows, but that is exactly what they are. Stiff and lumpy and somehow charming despite all of that. Like most of the furniture Daisy has here, the maroon sofa is austere and generic, soft velvet still crisp and striated with disuse. 

They have taken to curling up against one another on this unbroken sofa, Jon with a book by James Hunter forgotten in one hand and Martin typing away on a laptop with no internet. Jon knows he is writing a poem, even though Martin never says. The day had been unusually warm and balmy, so they’ve opened the kitchen windows to welcome the cooling evening in lieu of lighting the fireplace. Jon watches as a breeze blows a skein of hair away from Martin’s furrowed brow, biting back a smile at the way Martin’s tongue pokes ever-so slightly from between his teeth as he concentrates. 

He buries deeper into Martin’s hoodie, vaguely hungry. Not for food. Basira’s statements should be arriving soon, with any luck. For now Jon contends with the call of nighttime birds waking up to dusk, the methodical clicking of computer keys, and the slow rise and fall of Martin’s breathing against his side. The cabin gives a contented creak as it settles. Jon cannot remember the last time he felt this serene, this _safe,_ and drinks it in while it lasts (because it won’t). It is enough that Jon lets himself slip into a warm, imperturbable doze for some immeasurable amount of time.

Well, almost imperturbable. A sudden jolt from Martin has Jon scrunching his eyes closed, resisting consciousness with practiced petulance. There is nothing more, though, so Jon’s forehead smoothes out and he focuses on returning to his nap.

He’s almost there, when Martin jolts again with a tiny sound in his throat. _Hiccups?_ Jon contemplates Looking, but that would require energy and moving, so he decides against it. Also, you know, boundaries and such. 

It’s when the jolt happens for a third time that Jon finally cracks a belligerent eye open to see what the heck Martin is doing. A bleary, upside-down view of his boyfriend shows him using one hand to type, while the other remains pressed beneath his septum. When he sniffs, it hits Jon. Martin’s been…sneezing.

The only reason it’s taken so long to figure out is because Jon cannot recall Martin ever sneezing in the archives. Which is unlikely; they’ve worked together for over four years, and despite whatever Entities have tried to claim him, Martin is human. Jon supposes any sneezing was simply smothered into quiet gulps behind bookshelves or closed doors, evading his notice. He cannot imagine stifling his own sneezes (as subtle as a speeding Mack truck they are). He almost wishes Martin would just let loose so he could go back to napping.

After another swallowed-down sneeze Jon sighs. “Bless you, Martin.”

Martin startles, unaware that Jon had woken. The hand under his nose quickly falls back to the keyboard. “Jon!” he breathes in surprise. “I didn’t, I’m not—” Jon stares at him pointedly. Martin’s shoulders slump in defeat. “Um. Thanks. Sorry, if—if I woke you.”

Jon makes a comfortable noise that Martin interprets as _I forgive you,_ yawns, and settles back into the makeshift pillow that is Martin’s sweater. And that should be that, except not five minutes later Martin begins sneezing again. They sound more strangled now, more pinched, as if he’s making a greater effort to keep them quiet for Jon’s sake.

Jon resigns himself to the fact that he’s slept enough, trying not to sound disgruntled when he speaks again. “Martin.”

Martin crushes a palm against his nose in frustration. “Sorry, sorry! I can go into the other room, if you like,” he says, through his hand. It comes out nasally and ridiculous, but Jon does not laugh. Instead, he sits up and gently closes the laptop on Martin’s knees. Martin sputters, mostly for effect. Jon knows he doesn’t really mind.

“Look,” he tells Martin. “You’ve obviously got an itch, so have at it.”

For a moment Martin just blinks at him. “Have…at it,” he echoes, slowly.

Jon manages to sound both impatient and inviting when he answers. “Sneeze.”

Martin’s confusion is quickly replaced with guilt. “Oh! That. Um, I guess, I’ll try to be quiet, if it happens again?” He winces at the flat, bedraggled look Jon is giving him. “I mean, sorry, I know you need your rest—”

Jon rubs at his forehead. “Stop apologizing, Martin. I don’t care about that.” Which is not entirely a lie, but. Martin’s distress takes precedence over a little shut-eye. He still looks awfully sneezy; lips parted, the edges of his nostrils pink and flaring. Jon frowns.

“Are you alright?” he asks. “Is your—uh, is your nose—is it the dust?”

Martin gives a little snort. “D’you think Elias would have hired me to work in a two hundred-year old building if I couldn’t take a little dust?” he asks dryly.

“So…”

“Can’t you just Know?”

“You know I can,” Jon says quietly. “I’d rather you tell me, though.”

Martin leans back against the sofa, exhaling. “If you _must_ know, the little shop in town wasn’t just out of _tea,”_ he begins, hesitantly. “And Highland flora isn’t the…most agreeable…ah…h- _hih!_ Nn.” As if on cue, Martin prepares for an itchy-sounding sneeze, only to have it elude him at the last minute. He exhales with a wet, unhappy sniffle.

“Ah,” says Jon. “I assume allergy meds are in low stock because of the season.”

“Unfortunately. _Snf!_ Gods,” Martin says, scrubbing at one eye and squinting, “this is horrendous.” He seems to momentarily forget that Jon’s sitting right next to him and he winces. “Sorry. I don’t mean to complain. It’s just…I usually have this sort of thing under control, you know? And the—the fact that I don’t right now is kind of irritating.”

Jon, who does not have any allergies of the sort but knows a thing or two about control, nods. “I can imagine.”

Rather than reply Martin’s eyes go hazy, and this time he twists away to muffle a small sneeze into the crook of his elbow. Afterwards he mumbles out a soft “Excuse me.” When he turns back, he catches Jon giving him a sympathetic stare.

“I don’t like that this is bothering you so much,” Jon remarks. “Is there, erm, anything I can do?”

“It’s alright, Jon. Not like the world’s going to end because I have a little hay fever,” Martin says, the bridge of his nose crinkling.

Jon bites his lip. Martin is already uncomfortable enough as it is, so this is no time for Jon to be awkward. “You just look a bit miserable,” he says. “And…like you really have to sneeze. Still.” Martin dismisses that with a wave.

“Jon, considering what we’ve been through in like, the past month alone, it’s really not that ba-a _ahhd’gxt!_ Snf.”

Jon arches an eyebrow. “You just told me two seconds ago that it was horrendous.”

“I—” Martin’s eyes slam shut before he can protest further: “ _H’dt!_ Okay okay, _fine,_ it’s a _teensy_ bit annoying,” he concedes. _“N’gch-ng **xt!”**_

“Christ, Martin. Can’t you let yourself actually _sneeze,_ if it helps?”

Martin runs a hand through his hair and huffs a nervous laugh. “It’ll _help,_ but I’m afraid if I start I won’t be able to stop,” he admits. “Not sure if we’ve reached _that_ gross stage in our relationship yet.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Martin, you’ve seen me covered in worms.”

“Right, but that’s different.”

“Here.” Jon reaches up and gingerly removes Martin’s glasses. The blue-gray eyes behind them are teary and slightly bloodshot. Jon places the glasses on the nearby coffee table and urges Martin to do the same with his computer. He pulls Martin onto his lap, so now the latter is the one resting against him. Slowly, he begins stroking a hand through Martin’s hair, occasionally rubbing weathered thumbs along his temples. Jon knows his skin runs unnaturally cool, if Martin's little moan of contentment is anything to go by. He smiles, tries to etch this scene into his mind forever.

After a moment he moves lower, massaging the mildly swollen skin beneath Martin’s eyes. As he does so the eyelids flutter, and Jon pauses, allowing him a moment. But the sneezes seem stubborn now. Worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, Jon chances a tentative tap to Martin’s button-shaped nose, which makes it quiver and scrunch. Martin brings a knuckle up to rub at the tip.

“Fair warning, Jon, if you keep doing _that,_ it’s not going to be- _heeh_ pretty.”

“Please,” Jon replies, “I’m hardly going to fault you for something like sneezing, of all things. It must be uncomfortable holding them back.”

“A bit _-hh!_ Hard at the moment, yeah. Hh… **Hg** nt! Ng _xt!_ Snf. _Excuse_ me, god, sorry.”

Jon shakes his head fondly. As much as the plants outside are getting to Martin, he can see that Martin isn’t going to let himself sneeze properly (he had once witnessed Martin work through an entire day with a concussion, out of sheer politeness). After a few more minutes of watching Martin hitch and snuffle back pathetic little half-sneezes, Jon decides he has had quite enough. Time to play dirty.

“Martin!” he exclaims, pointing. “Look out the window. Now that’s what I call a _magnificent_ cow.”

“What? Where?” Martin sits up and turns his head to where Jon is staring. As he does so, Jon takes the opportunity to give a sharp flick to the side of Martin’s nose, just hard enough for it to sting. Brazen for him, but hey. Between the two of them there’s been enough suffering for one lifetime.

Martin snaps his head around in surprise, eyes watering. “I d—” he’s about to say more, but the need to sneeze suddenly rears, fierce and unbearable. Martin gasps, the urge too strong to contain any longer. His final thought before he is wrenched forward with the makings of an impressive sneezing attack is relief that Jon had erstwhile removed his glasses.

Predictably, Martin tries to apologize through it. _“Eh’ **TSSHIEW!** _Ss-orry, sorry! _Hh‘dtSH! Tshih!_ Ah, _hah—”_ His features crumple again, urgent and ticklish and desperate. _“H’EDjschu! nght’T **SHU!** …H’dtsh! Hh’TSch! _S _orry-tschu! **Atsch** iu!”_

Jon fidgets with one of the tassels on a throw pillow while he waits for Martin to wind down, unsure if he should be helping in some way. Martin hadn’t been joking about not being able to stop. It’s violent, incapacitating, and so utterly _human_ that Jon has to swallow back a lump in his throat.

_“Heh…H-hKTCH! Hd’tSH! h’dt **SH!**_ Oh my _god_ — _het **SCHH!** ” _

For a moment Jon is mesmerized, watching sneezes tumble out of his boyfriend with relentless intensity. Then he feels guilty just gaping like an imbecile when Martin’s fit takes on a decidedly messier sound. The apologies also start to morph into something more colorful as Martin throws decorum out the window with each sneeze.

_“He **TSCH!** TSCHH! Hd’tsh-shiu! _Ugh, _really? T_ _shiu!_ Snf! _HA-shew!_ For fuck’s s-sak’ _shoo! ‘t **SHIEW!** ”_

Tissues, right. Jon doesn’t remember if Daisy kept a box of Kleenex on hand, so in the end he hauls himself up and quickly fetches a few wads of toilet paper from the bathroom. When he returns to the sofa Martin is regaining control over himself, sniffling, eyes streaming, hair at Jon-levels of disheveled.

Jon knows more than anyone what it feels like to be stared at, scrutinized, so he looks away, giving Martin some privacy to recover.

Martin is the first to break the silence, voice rough and crackling. “Wow. Uh, okay, that was… _snf!_ Pardod be. Geez.” Martin attempts to laugh the whole thing off behind his sleeve, but the tips of his ears now match his nose. Jon bites his cheek against a smile. Snot aside, how had he ended up with someone so adorable?

“Quite,” says Jon, fondly. He plops down on the sofa next to Martin and hands him a bundle of tissues, observing, “Seems like you, ah, needed that.” 

“Guh. Bloody hell.” Martin has his nose pinched shut between a tissue, looking equal parts dazed and mortified. He accepts another handful of tissues from Jon and does his best to hide in them until he’s cleaned up some. He wipes his eyes and balls up the tissues, subsequently grimacing. “For the love of… _Etchu!_ Disgusti’g,” he mutters.

“Mm, gross,” Jon agrees, burrowing into Martin’s shoulder. “Positively repulsive. How could I _ever_ look at you the same way again.”

“You doh, sarcasb is actually a cute look od you.” Martin blows his nose again, clearing it. _“Snf!_ Ugh. Speaking of. Maybe I can sacrifice my eyes and nose to an eldritch, atavistic patron every spring. You know, do a ritual of ‘Ring around the Rosie,’ or something. How ’bout it? _Snf!”_

“I’m pretty sure ‘Ring around the Rosie’ falls under John Amherst’s domain,” Jon says dryly. He gives Martin a grim smile. “Besides, it doesn’t work that way.” 

“What, no god of humiliation?”

“That would be the Eye, obviously,” Jon proclaims, gesturing to himself. Martin sneezes again in response. “Bless you. Oh, and _…_ sorry, for the nose-flicking, and all. Are you mad?”

Martin crosses his arms. “Only that there wasn’t an actual cow.”

“Next time, there will be,” Jon promises. “In the meantime, I can make you a cup of our, ah, _remaining_ tea, close the windows, get a cool cloth for your eyes, if you like?”

“Oh, that was _smooth,_ Mister Sims. You know, for the blatant disregard to your own wellbeing you’re surprisingly nurturing,” Martin remarks, raising an eyebrow. He can almost _hear_ Jon blush.

“Is—is that your way of saying I’m what, good boyfriend material?” Jon splutters, his awkwardness returning all at once.

“The best,” Martin agrees, with a laugh. He blows his pink nose with a honk that Jon wouldn’t exactly call endearing, but prompts him to cup a hand to Martin’s face nonetheless. Martin’s eyes are still watering faintly. The lines at the corner of Jon’s mouth tighten as he brushes some of the wetness away with the pad of his finger.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“I’m good,” Martin answers. “Really. Though I’ll probably be, uh, sneezing for the rest of the evening. So as long as you’re okay with me sounding like a Sudafed ad gone wrong, I mean.”

“I don’t mind, Martin.”

Martin angles his head down so he is looking directly at Jon, gracing him with a raised eyebrow. “Really? ’Snot too gross for you?” He almost giggles at the pun.

Jon shakes his head, curling even deeper into Martin’s softness, and replies, “Mm. It’s a good reminder of…something human. Because I’m not entirely. Not anymore.”

“Can _you_ still, you know,” Martin gestures to his face, “all of this?”

“Although it doesn’t look like much fun, I think so, yes.” Jon pokes his own nose experimentally. “For now,” he mutters.

“Hm. Maybe Basira can send up some antihistamines next time.”

“If not, we can always pray to an eldritch entity of,” Jon waves a hand, “ragweed or something. Maybe the Loch Ness Monster.” Blimey, Jon’s joking muscle _really_ needs some exercise, Martin thinks. It’s simultaneously nerdy _and_ charming.

“That’s not even remotely funny,” Martin laments, but he is smiling.

Outside, it has grown dark. The night and its untimely denizens, once frightening, seem welcoming in this moment, with Martin and Jon holding each other close amidst the chirp of crickets. Martin is left tired from his allergy attack, and Jon, well. Jon is always in need of some R & R. So he lays, bony and prickly but somehow soft against Martin’s chest, and Martin lets his eyes fall shut.

Creature of the Beholding or not, Jonathan Sims still has a heart, and it still beats. 

_End._


End file.
